Laws that Work Injustice to Women and Children loss of liberty and loss of the necessaries of life most people would choose the former. Among the greatest wrongs done to wives, mothers and children are those perpetrated by legislatures and courts in the sacred name of Justice. One has but to watch the proceedings in the ordinary police court for a brief while to be led to exclaim: "O, Justice! what crimes are committed in thy name!" Recent years have witnessed an extraordinary increase in legislation. Nearly fifty legislatures and innumer able city councils, township boards and other law-making bodies are piling up enactments to such an extent as to make more difficult day by day the art of living. By a stupendous fiction of the law not only is every individual above the age of ten years, or thereabouts, conclusively presumed to know every law of the United States and of the state in which he lives, and every ordi nance of the city or village in which he resides, but to know also their legal meaning and effect as construed by the courts. A shipload of immigrants arriv ing in New York before breakfast are required to know not only the provi sions of every ordinance passed by the common council the night before, but how the Court of Appeals will construe them after they have run the gauntlet of the lower courts. It is, perhaps, not surprising that under the circumstances there are many violators of the law. The Chicago City Council has passed a law requiring ladies to remove their hats in theatres, under a penalty of three weeks in the House of Correction. Should it, with equal propriety and with the approval of the Mayor, enact that men must wear their headgear at breakfast, a million offenders who would sit down hatless at their tables the fol
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lowing morning could not plead in de fense that the law had been passed while they were asleep. Of these multitudinous laws many are trifling in the extreme, but their viola tion may bring ruin to the offender and untold suffering and privation to his family. In Chicago, among much other valuable legislation, are the following enactments, with the penalties which may follow inability to pay the fine and costs assessed:— Trampling upon the grass in front of your own house—four months in jail. Leaving nail projecting half inch or more above the railing on porch—four months in jail; and the same penalty for each day it is allowed to remain after notice. Making any mechanical noise to ad vertise goods—four months in jail. Making, aiding, countenancing or as sisting in making "any improper noise" —six months at hard labor. Making a chalk mark on a water hydrant or sewer pipe—four months. Placing on window-sill any object whatever without being securely fas tened—four months. Mutilating any theatre poster—two months. Throwing any fruit-skin on sidewalk (no prohibition of vegetable skins) — two months. Refusing to pay fare to hackman— six months. Refusal by hackman to give name to passenger—six months. Carrying in one's pocket a knife of any description—six months. Leading a dog through a park—six months. Wheeling a baby carriage on the street after dark without one or more lights on it—two months. Eight thousand three hundred and twenty-three persons who were fined
